• Better Hasidism Through Zen Buddhism
  • (And Sufism, and Science Fiction...)
  • By Rachel Barenblat
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  • Rachel Barenblat
    Rachel Barenblat is a student in the ALEPH rabbinic program and a contributing editor to Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture. Author of three poetry chapbooks, she holds an MFA from Bennington, and blogs as The Velveteen Rabbi.

    • A Heart Afire: Stories and Teachings of the Early Hasidic Masters
    • Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Netanel Miles-Yepez
    • Jewish Publication Society of America (2010)


    by Z
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    For many people, Hasidism is identified almost exclusively with the ultra-orthodoxy of Jews in Brooklyn and Meah Shearim. But we believe that Hasidism is actually something larger, something perpendicular to a continuum that stretches from the farthest reaches of liberal spirituality to the most strictly defined orthodoxy. That is to say, there is a dimension of holy sincerity and piety associated with living in the authentic presence of God, nokhah p’nai ha-Shem, that applies equally to all, whether one is a Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, or Orthodox Jew or even, as we have discovered over the years, an evangelical Christian or Universalist Sufi! That is the Hasidism that we seek to present here.

    So write co-authors Netanel Miles-Yepez and Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in the introduction to A Heart Afire: Stories and Teachings of the Early Hasidic Masters, an “intimate guided tour” of early Hasidism. Miles-Yepez is a scholar of comparative religion and a disciple of his co-author, Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi; together they are co-founders of the Sufi-Hasidic Inayati-Maimuni Tariqat, the world’s only Jewish order of Sufis.

    Schachter-Shalomi, who was ordained a rabbi by Chabad-Lubavitch in 1947, is also one of the founders of the transdenominational movement to revitalize Judaism known as Jewish Renewal. (Full disclosure: I’m a Jewish Renewal rabbinic student, which means I am a student of his students.) The two men collaborated on this book with the intention of introducing a broad audience to Hasidic teaching.

    While most histories of Hasidism place its founding in the 18th century with the Baal Shem Tov, the authors argue that its origins can be traced back many centuries before his birth. It manifested among the early sages of the first and second centuries BCE; among the “Hasidei Ashkenaz” (“the pious of Germany”) in the 12th and 13th centuries CE; and among the Hasidim (disciples) of the Baal Shem Tov, whom the authors call the “rebbes of the Third Turning.” The volume collects the stories and the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and his fellows in order to make them accessible to the neo-Hasidic seekers and future builders of the “Fourth Turning,” which is taking place at this very moment.

    The book presents “diverse stories and teachings from across the spectrum of Hasidic spirituality” and the authors’ desire is to “lead the reader up to [these stories], like an attendant at a mikveh (ritual bath)—waiting while one dips—then providing them with a towel as they are led out.” This isn’t an academic exploration of Hasidism; these stories are meant to be an immersive experience.

    And, while many collections draw a distinct line between the intellectual teachings of the Hasidic masters and the hagiographic writings surrounding them, Heart Afire chooses to weave both together. The Hasid, the authors tell us, is not concerned with academic distinctions between one model of learning and another; he is “only concerned with what is of transformational value or teaching in the story...” In that sense, Miles-Yepez and Schachter-Shalomi are clearly Hasidim; they want to present a Hasidism with the capacity to transform.

    Schachter-Shalomi’s ecumenism peppers these pages despite their intensely Jewish focus. In a digression from an early chapter about the Baal Shem Tov’s life and “enlightenment,” Schachter-Shalomi writes that people often ask him about his own theophanies and he always wants to answer, “I’m not Rinzai, I’m Soto!” (In Zen Buddhism, he goes on to clarify, “the Rinzai school talks about ‘sudden enlightenment,’ whereas the Soto school recognizes gradual enlightenment”). The Hasid who uses Zen parables to make a point about his own spiritual life: that’s Reb Zalman in a nutshell.

    The authors make periodic reference to other traditions as well, drawing on teachings from Hinduism, Christianity, and Sufi Islam, among others. “If you believe in hashgahah pratit,” they write—referring to the Baal Shem Tov’s doctrine that even a leaf falling from a tree and being blown by the wind does so because of divine providence—“then you have to believe that all that we find in the religious world is… God making certain that every nation has access to the Divine in the forms that fit the ethic and environmental ways of the people.”

    The authors draw too on Arthurian legend, Frank Herbert’s Dune series, and the esoterica of Lurianic kabbalah. Occasionally I found the shift between intricate Hasidic tales and assorted pop culture references jarring, but upon rereading the book I realize that it’s often these associative intellectual leaps which prompted me to scribble marginalia.

    The stories in the book are told in informal, conversational language, though some of the most book’s most appealing passages are the commentaries that follow the stories, showcasing new facets of these old gems. After a short story, for example, about the Baal Shem Tov seeing a young shepherd jumping back and forth across a ditch in order to please God, the authors comment, “This is a good question for all of us to ask ourselves. ‘What is it that I have done for God alone—that no one else in the world knows—that is simply my own special love gift to God?’”

    Sometimes the commentary highlights spiritual teachings; other times it unpacks Hasidic ways of reading Torah. Early in the book there is a story about Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi debating a series of learned rabbinic opponents who defined themselves as mitnagdim, or “opponents” of the Hasidic tradition. Schneur Zalman begins his response by explaining that the foundation of the Hasidic doctrines at which these “opponents” took such umbrage is found in the first revelation of Moses, in the story of the bush which burned but was not consumed. The authors explain:

    The Hebrew says, “shal n’alekha m’al ragleha” (Remove the shoe from off your foot.) The Hasidic reading of this is, “Unlock yourself from your habits, for you are standing on holy ground,” because n’al, which means “shoe,” also means “lock,” something that locks you in, and regel, which means “foot,” also means “habit.” So in this holy place, you must release yourself from your habitual mind, for here everything is new, unprecedented.

    Using wordplay as an interpretive tool in order to glean emotional and psychological insight from a Torah text is a classic Hasidic technique. For readers who are unfamiliar with this kind of reading, explanations like these offer a window into the Hasidic mode of interpretation.

    For the Baal Shem Tov, the authors explain, it was not enough to talk about God or even to believe in God: rather “one must be in relationship with God.” The same could be said of Schachter-Shalomi and Miles-Yepez. The way these Hasidic stories are presented invites the reader not only to encounter them but to enter into relationship with them—and, through them, with the God who is always behind them.

    With so many other excellent collections of Hasidic lore in the world why read this one? One reason is the authors’ commitment to “deep ecumenism” and to wresting a post-triumphalist theology from this branch of Jewish tradition. Another is that this book is, I think, designed not only to educate but to inspire. They want all of us to partake in some of what makes the Hasidim who they are—what they name the “heart afire.”

    The heart afire, they write, “has a flame that cannot be quenched, and the secret of its eternal flame is a continual peeling away of the layers of the ego, revealing a simpler, humbler, and more direct prayer in the presence of God.” 

     

    A Conversation with Rebbe Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

    Tell us about writing A Heart Afire.

    The person with whom I’ve been working, Netanel Miles-Yepez, is the descendant of conversos. He has been my friend and scribe. He attended many of my sessions, and eventually he said, it’s time to make a book of that.

    He was brilliant in choosing different typefaces, so you could see where I interrupted a narrative by telling another story. That’s how a farbrengen [Hasidic gathering] takes place!

    The material was given over orally?

    Yes, and Netanel shaped it. He set up also the Reb Zalman Legacy Project Web site. He was my Reb Nosson [the scribe who wrote down Reb Nachman’s teachings for posterity.]

    I’m struck by the “deep ecumenism” here—how you draw on Buddhist, Christian, Sufi, Hindu teachings in order to illuminate Hasidic thought. Do you think that risks alienating more traditional readers?

    It was a conscious choice. We could have eliminated these things and gotten more kudos from the frum [Orthodox] world. But the frum world has this material available! Along with exhortations for switching back to an older paradigm, to more halakhic behavior and so on. I was not interested in that.

    When I was reading things like Aldous Huxley’s perennial philosophy or William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, I noticed that those people have good material from Buddism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, but nothing Jewish. Read how Gratz in his history deals with Hasidim, you’ll see he had no good feelings for them; he called them superstitious, people who like the darkness, and so on. The beautiful things that are there never came out.

    Then Buber came, then Heschel came. There’s a whole lode of possibilities! I felt strongly that it was important to make this available. I’ve been doing this translation work since the early ’60s. But I’ve also decided I would translate only that which turns me on, that which is enlightening.

    So in that sense the ecumenical choice shapes the audience...

    Look at how many people have read the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita and so on. It’s important to show where the bridges are.

    This is not a political book, but I wonder how its messages and teachings might speak to religious progressives who want to engage more deeply with the political world.

    In order to sustain political activity that is progressive in the world, without ego, you have to have a spiritual connection. Otherwise it becomes grandstanding, “he’s on his bully pulpit again,” and people don’t honor that! There’s something about Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama—you have a feeling their pronouncements are as a result of deep meditation and prayer. That’s very important.

    The Reform movement cut off a lot of kabbalah and faith-stuff because they didn’t have a reason for believing it. Conservatives wanted to have a little more practice. The Reconstructionists arrived on the scene and they were doing sociology. All of this was a very flat world, two-dimensional. Jewish Renewal came along with the Four Worlds teachings and so on, and we offer a different understanding. You can’t make peace by talking to the cortex alone and ignoring the reptilian and the limbic brains. You need access to atzilutic intuition.

    When Reb Shlomo [Carlebach] would tell stories, he would take us into the imaginal realm. I called him a genius of virtuous reality. Because when you heard the stories, about a guy who was a beggar and did a heroic act of kindness, you’d say, alavai, “if only I could do that too!” It’s important to have holy models; that’s what the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples did. To have a model like we have in Adele, the daughter of the Baal Shem—that’s wonderful.

    One traditional way of understanding is: the Torah came from Sinai, and Reb Pinchas of Koretz thought it had become anemic, so God took the light of moshiach [the messiah] and put some of it into the Baal Shem Tov to give us the courage to continue. Another way to think about it is: there’s the alpha point at Mt. Sinai, and the omega point when moshiach comes. That’s one dimension.

    The other dimension is: think in terms of Torah from Sinai and Torah min ha-shamayim [from the heavens]. If you’re open to Torah coming from the heavens even now, you do what Heschel did. The prophetic spirit comes and says, this is what you have to do in the world.

    That was going to be my next question: can we find a model in Heschel and his high profile in the civil rights movement?

    Yes. There were lots of other professors, fine peple at the seminary, but nobody else did what he did. The others were thinking of God as a concept and he was thinking of God as a reality. Not thinking—he was facing the reality of God! He once asked me, how do you understand my work? I said, well, Buber has I and Thou. He said, don’t begin with Buber, tell me about myself. I said, I can’t, because there’s the I/It and the I/Thou, and you have brought in another dimension which I call the He/Me. He, which is to say God, is the subject, and I am God’s object! God in search of man.

    I’m aware that this call is being monitored for quality purposes. The Ribbono Shel Olam [Master of the Universe] is listening in. When that awareness isn’t there, in politics, it’s dangerous.

    For many of us, balancing between personal growth and political commitment is a challenge. I think of the teaching from the B’nai Yissaschar that the gematria of “Yisrael” is “neshamah” plus “olam” (that in order to truly be Israel we need to concern ourselves with repair of both our souls and our world), but it’s easy for that balance to become skewed. What words of wisdom can you offer on that front?

    In the late sixties and early seventies everything was “far out,” “outtasight,” everybody wanted to go to the highest place. When I look at what’s been happening in spirituality—for instance in Buddhism how many Yiddelach [Jews] have been changing things there, Jack Kornfield, Sylvia Boorstein, Allen Ginsburg—I see a move from the search for the transcendant into trying to find God’s immanence. I think this is what’s happening.

    The concern of spirituality is to say that my ego is not the top of the line. I am merely a cell of a larger organism. The best thing I can do is be a healthy cell of this organism.

    When I am in that space, I can also say that the individual and the collective are not separate. Look how many people today have depression, and they want to leave that depression—but in reality it’s not all individual depression. I once did a meditation in which I allowed myself to feel what our mother the Earth feels all around, and there wasn’t a single place that wasn’t experiencing pain in her body.

    On the other hand, if I want to be a healthy cell and serve the Ribbono shel Olam, the spirit of Gaia—I’m not talking about ein sof [utter transcendence], ein sof doesn’t need me, but Gaia needs me to be aware and integrated, to work for greater health of it all—then I need to have a certain kind of spiritual maintenance. I need davenen [prayer], having a shiur [studying Torah]. This morning I was doing Chumash [Torah] and Mikraot Gedolot, and I studied some work by a certain master whose yarzheit [one year anniversary of the death of a loved one] is today, and some tehillim [psalms], and some Tanya. If I’m going go out into the world, then I have to do my spiritual maintenance.

    And I need to do immediate maintenance of relationships in the family. Underneath all of this, there has to be a carrier wave of love. Then it can go to the larger thing—for instance, I fired off a letter today to Congressmen and Senators about an abuse that a drug company is doing on Medicare.

    You’re saying you can’t do the political work if you’re not also doing the spiritual work.

    You see? There aren’t any walls between these.

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